The invention relates, in general, to an amusement ride.
Nothing in the following discussion of the state of the art is to be construed as an admission of prior art.
In the field of amusement rides, there are two different concepts for moving a vehicle that carries one or more passengers along a structure. On the one hand, roller coasters are known, which provide their entertainment to the passengers by extreme shapes of the track, for example loops or helices. Alternatively, vertical towers are known, which take their entertainment from lifting the vehicle vertically upwards to an elevated position and letting the vehicle drop vertically along a set length along the structure thereby simulating a “free fall”. Such a tower is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,690. A combination of a roller coaster course with a free fall tower is known from published U.S. Pat. Appl. No. 2002/0103033 A1. These concepts are disadvantageous with respect to the desire of certain customers to enjoy a ride to an elevated position without the stress situations that roller coasters or free-fall towers create. Furthermore, free-fall towers are known to be limited in their capacity of handling customers, as the tower-structure cannot be used while passengers embark and disembark the vehicle, leaving the large tower structure with prolonged downtimes.
Customers who are interested in slower rides to reach elevated positions, big wheels or Ferris Wheels are known. These structures are however very large and obstruct large areas of air space, giving them a prominent but sometimes unwanted dominance. Furthermore, the round trip along a big wheel has been considered as conventional by certain customers looking for different rides.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved amusement ride to obviate prior art shortcomings.